Sport reporter for The Age online

Tawrrific wins the 1989 Melbourne Cup at the terrific odds of 30/1. Now THAT'S a cup winner we'd like to back!

Join us Saturday morning for our full panel's roughies for the quaddie legs of the Caulfield Cup day meeting at Caulfield

For too long, the favourites have hogged the limelight. The fancy-pants pin-ups, the untouchable silver-spoon royalty of the turf, bred in the pink and owned by the high and mighty, whose petty cash surpasses our annual salaries. Overworked experts go straight to such elite equines for their "best bets", "good things" and "top picks".

"You can't eat value," they say.

Not all racehorses are created equal. Photo: Tony Feder

We say you can eat value — you just don't dine out as often. We say that if you back favourites all the time, you eat fish and chips every night. Longshot winners are a feast that can sustain you for months.

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We, the paupers of the punt, need to outlay little to win lots. (Or dream of same, depending on how our luck is running.) We are prepared to have a run of outs in order to have a big win. We scoff at the percentages. We ignore odds-on pops. We target odds-on pops. We went around Pierro in the Caulfield Guineas. We have never backed Black Caviar.

Yes, we are romantic fools, but since you are a sensible punter, you need us. Because nonsensical things happen all the time in racing. It is the improbable results you need to cover after you have done all your reasoned analysis. We are the final piece of your punting jigsaw.

This column will pinpoint that horse on the periphery which you should spend your loose change on, that nagging consideration at the back of your mind that you should include in your quaddie. We are not about percentages and discipline. We are about game-changing coups, and glorious, improbable collects.

Today: Cups doubles

Firstly, a confession. I have never had a collect on a Cups Double. Furthermore, I have only ever heard of near-misses. But what near-misses! Some of those "missed it by that much" collects would have funded major lifestyle renovations.

Let us cut short any carefully considered qualms about the fields not being finalised etc with this pertinent fact: the odds are stupendous. Land one of these beauties and your mortgage will shudder.

Desperate Dan's tips

Our resident desperado remembers a time not so long ago that he loved the overseas horses coming over to try to claim our Cup. A time when every European trainer thought they could do what Dermot Weld did with Vintage Crop in the 1993 Melbourne Cup. For the next decade, they tried ... and failed. Overseas raider after overseas raider came to Melbourne, receiving not Group 1 glory, but an almighty butt-kicking from the Aussie stayers.

Everything was right in the world ... until Dermot came back with a little horse called Media Puzzle. Then everything changed. We watched as Ireland took back our Melbourne Cup, handing it a few years later to Japan, who loaned it back to the Aussies before it was again handed over, this time to the French. Sacre bleu!

So Desperate Dan has given up. He's on the bandwagon now. He says bring on the Brits. Bring on the French. Bring on the Yanks. If you can beat them, back them. We may as well try to make some money out of them.

CAULFIELD CUP RUNNERS TO WATCH• Moudre $61 — Lightly raced, can stay ... but may be flakier than a chocolate covered shark.• Jakkalberry $17 — More Caulfield Cup than Melbourne Cup: pick of the imports, has settled well.• Secret Admirer $26 — Only 3 wins but 2 at the G1 mile: secretly building her into a mile and a half horse? Sounds like something Beggy would do.

MELBOURNE CUP RUNNERS TO WATCH• Gatewood $31 — Will be favourite after winning the Geelong Cup.• Ethiopia $21 — AJC Derby winner, delightful run in the Turnbull, grandson of the great Helissio.• Midas Touch $61 — At a staying trip, the patient prep of this Arc 17th placegetter will yield results.• Niwot $51 — Best of the Aussies last year, Sydney Cup winner, but older than Older Than Time.

Oracle Odg

Every year, Oracle Odg has two sets of doubles. "The first is in September when every combination will buy Grange," he says. "The second is this week when I take double figures in the Caulfield Cup into the Melbourne Cup swimmers. Very few can win if it pours, so if live I'm only barracking for thunder. In fact I'm always barracking for the flood — the last Caulfield Cup winner I had was Sydeston (in 1990).